Issued while Congress is in recess and in the absence of any genuine emergency, DNU 941/2025 introduces a far-reaching transformation of the national intelligence framework. Although the government frames the measure as a set of administrative clarifications, it constitutes a structural reconfiguration of the State’s security and defense apparatus. The decree grants the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE) powers characteristic of a secret police force, including detention authority, and establishes a legal framework for the surveillance of the entire population under conditions of extreme secrecy.
This reform represents a dangerous constitutional and democratic regression. It erodes legal limits and oversight mechanisms governing intelligence agencies, entrenching opacity, discretion, and secrecy, and enabling direct interference by intelligence bodies in social and political life.
At the core of the decree is a shift in the intelligence model itself. SIDE is reoriented toward counterintelligence, a concept expansively redefined to include virtually any internal or external factor deemed a threat to the government. This effectively transforms SIDE into an agency of political intelligence, tasked with monitoring and controlling those labeled as “internal risks.” The logic of the internal enemy is once again present in Argentina’s intelligence system. The decree also poses grave risks to fundamental rights, particularly privacy and freedom. State agencies such as ReNaPer (civil registry) or ARCA (tax authority), will be compelled to supply personal data to the intelligence system without meaningful democratic oversight.
Over the past two years, the Executive Branch has amended the intelligence system and the organic laws of the police and federal security forces through emergency decrees, despite constitutional prohibitions. Legislative and judicial inaction has enabled these violations. This new decree further expands an unconstitutional framework aimed at political surveillance, targeting groups already identified as “internal enemies” in the leaked National Intelligence Plan (PIN), including anarquists, journalists, Indigenous communities, and social and political actors critical of government policies.
More secrecy, more arbitrariness, less transparency
The decree adds a new article 2 (2) to the National Intelligence Law, establishing that all National Intelligence activities are classified as covert “due to their sensitivity,” with the stated objective of minimizing “National Strategic Risk.”
This level of secrecy formally conceals the actions of SIDE and the National Intelligence System, making secrecy an explicit legal rule. The decree authorizes the “preservation of methods and sources” without setting any limits. Historically, this type of blanket secrecy has enabled abuses such as the use of secret funds for illegal operations, as occurred in the investigation into the AMIA bombing, as well as the diversion of funds for the personal enrichment of officials or agents.
In democratic systems, it is essential to promote the greatest possible transparency in the handling of intelligence information. Establishing publicity as a principle prevents secrecy from remaining the default rule governing intelligence agencies and makes internal and external oversight possible. This DNU further weakens oversight by citizens, political institutions, and the judiciary.
In search of an internal enemy
The new Article 2 (4) significantly expands the concept of counterintelligence, which now includes the prevention of infiltration, espionage, sabotage, influence, interference, or intervention by external factors, including so-called “multidimensional approaches” involving state and non-state actors.
The decree also establishes “Counterintelligence Security Measures” to be implemented throughout the entire National Public Sector, under the responsibility of the head of each agency. This effectively turns the entire public administration into an active component of the counterintelligence strategy directed by SIDE.
At the same time, the decree amends Article 4 of the National Intelligence Law. Prohibitions designed to prevent intelligence agencies from engaging in political intelligence—such as influencing political, social, or economic life, political parties, or public opinion—are rendered ineffective by the introduction of a broad exception. The counterintelligence activities authorized under the new Article 2 (4) are allowed to carry out practices that were previously prohibited. In practice, this relaxes legal limits on domestic intelligence and enables political espionage under the banner of counterintelligence.
In light of what is known from the leaked National Intelligence Plan , which authorizes surveillance of anyone the government considers a threat to its policies, this DNU clearly seeks to provide a façade of “legality” for anti-democratic and unconstitutional intelligence practices.
SIDE as secret police
With the entry into force of the DNU, SIDE is now authorized to detain individuals. This coercive power, granted by executive decree to the National Counterintelligence Agency, violates one of the most fundamental principles of the constitutional system. The Executive Branch cannot confer detention powers by decree on security bodies, for undefined reasons and without judicial authorization—much less on an intelligence agency.
Article 10 (9) authorizes intelligence personnel to repel or halt attacks against facilities, assets, personnel, operations, or information of the intelligence system, and to detain individuals in the context of intelligence activities, judicial assistance, or crimes committed in flagrante delicto.
Autonomous Armed Forces with domestic intelligence tasks
Article 10 (8) authorizes SIDE to request assistance, technical support, or logistical support from the Armed Forces, federal security forces, and police forces. In such cases, the personnel involved are subject to the same conditions as intelligence staff, including secrecy obligations. The decree also establishes that, in peacetime, military intelligence will generate intelligence on “non-state organizations of interest,” without defining the scope or meaning of this category.
At the same time, the government eliminates civilian oversight of military intelligence and grants autonomy to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Together, these measures represent a historic regression from the political agreements of recent decades aimed at strengthening civilian control over the Armed Forces and maintaining the separation between National Defense and Internal Security, in order to prevent the military from intervening again in the event of internal conflict scenarios.
Mass surveillance and personal data at risk
Another deeply concerning aspect of the decree is the handling of citizens’ personal information. The DNU expands data-sharing mechanisms and obliges all agencies within the Public Administration to provide information to SIDE, without effective oversight or prior judicial authorization.
The creation of the National Information Community, led by SIDE, opens new channels for the transfer of information from civilian agencies to the National Intelligence System, without limits on the type of data involved, the criteria of necessity and retention, or the mechanisms of control. In practice, this allows SIDE to accumulate personal information on any individual held by other state agencies.
As previously warned in relation to DNU 614/24, the broad functions granted to the former National Cybersecurity Agency—now renamed the National Cyberintelligence Agency—raise serious questions regarding the scope of digital surveillance it may conduct, as well as its authorizations and oversight mechanisms.
Moreover, information obtained by SIDE without democratic controls may be shared with foreign intelligence agencies without judicial authorization and under conditions of absolute secrecy. The public will have no way of knowing what information is shared, with whom, for what purposes, or under what terms or agreements.
Political, operational, and budgetary centralization in SIDE
The decree deliberately and in bad faith conflates the legitimate need to improve coordination among intelligence agencies with the concentration of decision-making power in SIDE, transforming it into a super-agency with access to the full range of state resources and information.
Under the DNU, criminal and military intelligence are subordinated to SIDE. Its role as the governing authority of the National Intelligence System is strengthened, with powers to direct the National Intelligence Community and the National Information Community, request information from national, provincial, and Buenos Aires City agencies, and approve budgets, secret expenditures, and reallocations across the system.
This consolidates a centralized model for the production, control, and circulation of intelligence and information. This new SIDE resembles the most problematic and dangerous version of the intelligence agency from the time of the military dictatorship.
Since July 2024, the government has imposed an initial reform of the intelligence system by decree (DNU 614/24 and 615/24) and has advanced strategic guidelines and operational directives to conduct intelligence on what it defines as internal threats to governance and social conflict. The response of the political system and the judiciary has been to allow these measures to proceed unchecked. With this new decree, constitutional limits are pushed even further. It is urgent that Congress activate the Bicameral Intelligence Committee and that all democratic political forces work to reject this decree.